The Bludger: Muggle Protection Act
by JohnTFS
Summary: Arthur Weasley's Muggle Protection Act gets examined by Arachnae Israel


Arachnae3

Author's Note:_ All characters belonging to J. K. Rowling are used without permission or intent to harm. The character of Arachnae Israel is a deliberate homage to Warren Ellis' main character from his brilliant, moving comic, "Transmetropolitan" (which anyone interested in good writing should read)._

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Muggle Protection Act

Byline writer: Arachnae Israel

Okay, children, Mommy's got something a little funnier planned for today. It seems that Arthur Weasley's Muggle Protection Act is starting to pick up steam. Heh. Heh-heh BWAA-hahahhahahaha! Whew! Sorry, about that. I tend to get the giggles whenever I read about something as utterly absurd as Weasley's act. Ron, kiddo, if you're reading this, no offense, but I've got to say this. The Muggle Protection Act should be ranked up there up with Dragon-scented Love Perfume (for people who really want to attract a horny Horntail) and Full-Contact Extreme Quidditch as one of the dumber ideas ever conceived by a wizard.

The act essentially forbids wizards from using magic on muggles except in self-defense or other form of "dire necessity." That means the Ministry of Magic will fine you into poverty and throw your stupid arse into Azkaban for screwing with the Muggles. The thing is, this act is totally unnecessary because no wizard in anything _close_ to his right mind would want to mess around with the muggles. Damn. I've just read my first two paragraphs and I realize that I forgot that the vast majority of wizards are as pig-ignorant as I was when I started researching this column. 

I did do research on this column, by the way. As a matter of fact, the method I used for research was as wonderful and terrifying as anything else I found out. I used a thing that the Muggles call, "The Internet." I was fortunate enough to have a bored nine year-old muggle child named Timmy to help guide my efforts. To avoid transfiguring Timmy into a roach, I had use an extra measure of tolerance when dealing with him. Timmy, after all, had no idea with whom he was dealing. He probably thought that I was some ignorant country bumpkin. In truth I was a skilled wizard who by comparison with Timmy and other muggles happened to be an ignorant country bumpkin.

I think I've got an analogy to help explain what the Internet is. Imagine that you are in the Library of Hogwarts or one of the other great schools of magic. In that Library a great and powerful spell has been cast. You decide to look up something on "dragons." So, you simply say "dragons." Instantly huge numbers of books on dragons materialize in front you, open to the relevant information. You can narrow your "search" by being more specific: Horntail dragons, Horntail dragon attacks, and so forth. With each narrowing, more of the books disappear until you get to the volume which has the information that you want. In my session with Timmy, I learned more in three hours that I could have in three _days._

Do you know what this Internet, which puts to shame all but the very greatest of magical feats, is to the muggles? A tool. A convenience. An accessory to their daily lives that is given as much thought as we give to the Fetching spell we use to bring small objects to us. I went on to learn quite a bit in my session with this "tool."

For one thing, there are around six _billion_ muggles on this planet we share. They've set intricate machines into the heavens that let them scry the whole of the earth. They've built hundreds of huge cities to house their teeming millions. On a darker note, they have also created weapons of horrifying power. Called "nuclear weapons" these hellish devices (of which the muggles possess tens of thousands) can utterly destroy an area for miles around and make it inimical to life for years, even centuries to come. In almost every area of magic, the muggles can "mimic" a mystical effect with their "science." And they can usually "mimic" the effect in a far more convenient way.

That's what made me laugh before. The idea any wizard would risk attracting the attention and anger of these people should be absurd. A wizard should sooner play a prank by throwing rocks at a basilisk than irritate the muggles. And yet some do.

Unfortunately, the only people in the world dumber than Arthur Weasley are the people opposing his Muggle Protection Act and most especially those who would be liable for punishment under it. Still, as last year's Quidditch World Cup shows, there are plenty of dumb people out there. Assuming that you were one of the, what, two wizards or so who missed it, here's the deal. After the game, a bunch, stupid and possibly evil morons calling themselves wizards levitated the muggle family who'd rented out the Quidditch field. The Roberts (who consisted of a husband, wife and at least two small children) were put through a variety of involuntary aerial acrobatics before Arthur Weasley and a few other members of the Ministry of Magic put a stop to the situation. 

I sometimes wonder what kind of sick excuses for intelligent life would do something like what was done to the Roberts. Then I recalled that a few of the masked perpetrators had sizes and shapes that strongly resembled Lucius Malfoy and a few of his friends/lackeys. I'd suspect that the younger members of the Crabbe, Goyle and Malfoy clans were also joining in on the "fun." Where offspring are concerned, it's been my experience that the turd doesn't fall very from the rectum. Still and all, even as stupid and destructive as these twits were you'd think that only a madman or a fool would risk angering the undisputed rulers of the world.

And they are. We wizards are like a nest of mice in a cave filled with sleeping (or at least drowsy) dragons. We know many of the secret ways around the cave. We know of treasures and bits of food that the dragons do not. Should it come to a contest or battle, though, the dragons would destroy us easily and utterly.

I called the muggles the undisputed rulers of the world because they are. We don't dispute them, after all. Hundreds of years ago when we faced the aroused wrath of the Inquisition, we all jumped into a deep hole and pulled it in after ourselves, hoping our pursuers would forget us. And so they have, except in stories. 

While we stayed hidden, the world moved on and became theirs. We could, perhaps, have revealed ourselves after the Inquisition's fire had burned out and reason began to take hold in the muggle world, but we stayed hidden. When Adolph Hitler, a fellow who made Lord Voldemort seem like a schoolyard bully, began steering his country on the road to world war, we might have appeared, but we stayed hidden. Even now, as the muggles race faster and faster to what looks to be a grand destiny, we might reveal ourselves. We might take our places these "strangers" who are just as human as we are. But we won't. Fear is an easy habit to begin but a very difficult one to break.

Let me tell you a little something else about Timmy. He in the muggle public library with me because that's where his mother told him to stay until his doctor's appointment. You see, Timmy has a malignant growth within his brain that is slowly, but surely killing him. The muggle doctors use harsh chemicals that sicken and weaken Timmy to try to reduce the tumor. They also use burning beams of light, called "radiation" to try to kill it. So far nothing is working and Timmy continues to die.

After he'd told me his story in the shrugging, matter-of-fact way that nine year-olds have, I told him I was sorry. He said, "Don't worry about it, lady. It's not like it's your fault."

Except that it is, at least by omission. 

We have spells that could shrink Timmy's tumor into non-existence. We have potions that can wipe away diseases that even now condemn millions of our fellow human beings to agonizing deaths. We have creams that can regrow bones and severed limbs, restore sight and heal the most terrible of hurts.

And we keep them to ourselves.

After all, goes the argument, we can't risk revealing ourselves to them. It could be the end of us.

To hell with all that, it _should _be the end of us. We deserve it. 

There is a term in muggle law called "depraved indifference." It defines a crime that occurs when a person is capable of easily aiding another person in danger and refuses, causing that second person to suffer injury and death. Collectively, I'd say that we wizards are guilty of a whole bleeding lot of deaths by "depraved indifference." That's not so bad, though, after all, they're only muggles.

I can see them now, in my head. I line as far as the eye can see with their broken bodies and opened sores. They stand there with hollow, accusing eyes and ask "Where were you when we needed you?" Somehow "watching a Quidditch match" doesn't seem an adequate reply.

Now I just finished reading my muggle paper. I learned that Timothy James Bradstreet, age 9 passed away from brain cancer. He is survived by his parents, Joan and Marcus Bradstreet.

I'd like to believe my guilt made me read the paper wrong, but I don't think I can. I can just now see Timmy taking his place in the line. 

Well, it turns out this wasn't as funny as I'd thought. I don't know why I cried over that bit at end. I really shouldn't make all that big a deal over it.

After all, he was only a muggle. 

As always, those of you willing to learn the Truth that's been left unrevealed should send your 5 Sickles and subscription notice by owl to the address listed below. The rest of you mindless sheep in wizards' clothing can continue to slurp down whatever dung the Powers-That-Be choose to tell you to believe.

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Legal Notice: All articles published here in _The Bludger_ are the opinions of the writer and may not be considered as libelous or subject to lawsuits or injunctions of any kind. That means you cowardly filth can't sue me into oblivion for telling the plain Truth like you did last time. So read my words and tremble, because I'm coming for you. _The Bludger _is coming for you.And all the Beaters in the world can't keep you safe from the Truth. 


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